Archive for April, 2010

What are some of your first thoughts when you hear the state mentioned or see something about it? What are some of your first assumptions when you think of Louisiana people. What do you know about Louisiana culture?
For those who don’t know: No, we aren’t popular for country music. There’s actually nothing "country" about us, unless it is some of the people who’ve moved in from the neighboring states. Even the movies get our accents wrong. =)

As for Katrina, I know no one "mooching" off of the government from it. Trailers were given to residents after Katrina b/c they had no other place to go. *IF* the government actually gets these back they get destroyed, not even used for scraps. Whether someone lives in a Fema Trailer or not is there own business. And for some people, moving on is easier said than done.

But some people just won’t be able to understand unless they go through something similar – which I hope none of you have to do.

I think of it as a laid back, fun loving State.

15 comments - What do you think?
Posted by admin -
April 28, 2010 at 7:07 am

I recently went down to New Orleans and I’m trying so hard to find some music like the music I found there. I’m not looking for quantity, but rather really good quality thick New Orleans music. Thanks
Artists or songs would be great.

Zydeco is really the "cajun soundin’" stuff you’re thinking of.Buckwheat Zydeco and Clifton Chenier are probably the two best known zydeco artists.
As far as blues players go – Slim Harpo,Guitar Slim,Sonny Landreth(a personal favorite and probably the best slide guitarist alive) and Monte Montgomery should get you started in the right direction.

9 comments - What do you think?
Posted by admin -
April 25, 2010 at 5:30 am

We live in northwest Louisiana (near Natchitoches, LA) and would like to spend our anniversary (early July) in a romantic setting. We are only looking at destinations within a 4-5 hour drive because this is not our actual summer vacation; we are taking a cruise later in the summer. Destinations in any of our border states would be great. We would really enjoy going to a spa as part of our trip. Any ideas?

You could go to the Beau Rivage Casino Resort in Biloxi, MS; thay have a nice spa.

5 comments - What do you think?
Posted by admin -
April 22, 2010 at 6:55 am

I’ve tried everything I know of to find this music. I don’t want to join any music site for one song. This is an old song, it is actually the State song of Louisiana. It has been recorded by many artists. More recently it has been referred to as a lullaby. I’ve seached everywhere I can think of. I’ve spent hours looking thru Instrumentsl CD’s at stores.

Go to www.musicalcreations.com – they have a LOT of versions to choose from. Just search for the title you’re looking for.

I’ve read a lot and did a some research, now I would like to know the opinion of the citizens. The Grants for Grads Program is established in recognition that many Louisiana’s residents relocate from Louisiana upon completion of their college careers due to a perceived lack of economic opportunity. Homeownership reflects a commitment to remain in Louisiana and continue the tradition and culture of the state.

The grants for grads awards any Louisiana resident who has received an associate, baccalaureate, masters/postgraduate degree on or after January 1, 2008 and was:

As a LA resident I have been very aware of the outflow of LA college graduates. I have never heard of this program, but I see the need for it and I will definitely look into it.

There are many New Orleans Hotels but for a Boutique Hotel in the very heart of New Orleans there is one that holds a higher standard, The Bienville House on the edge of the French Quarter. It is a very distinctive property with style and grace.

The Bienville House has all of the unique elegance of a French Quarter Manor. A crystal blue pool is surrounded by a flagstone courtyard and is overlooked by many of the room’s wrought iron balconies. There are four sundecks for you to relax and savor the ambience.

This lovely hotel started as a grain warehouse but it has gone through many manifestations since then to become the boutique hotel it is today.

In the beginning it was Planter’s Rice Mill, then Thompson’s Rice Mill and Southern Syrup Manufacturing. Then, in 1985, the building was completely transformed into the North American Hotel. The original advertising stated it was a delightful summer residence for Ladies and Gentlemen. Unfortunately the hotels owners went their separate ways and the building was divided into a boarder’s hotel and a fire house. Then it was converted to 20 luxury apartments and started the rival of Decatur Street. In 1972, after surviving a fire from across the street, it was purchased by the Monteleone Family.

The location of the Bienville hotel on Decatur Street mixes the old and new of the charming French Quarter. With its lovely wrought iron balconies this intimate property is the closest to the French Quarter and therefore many attractions are close by. Some of them include Aquarium of the Americas, Canal Place Shopping Center (including Saks Fifth Avenue and Brooks Brothers), Woldenberg Park, IMAX Theater and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. From this New Orleans hotel you can be spellbound by the stars at the Hard Rock Café while still enjoying the historic French quarter with it’s many famous eateries and scenery.

From this splendid location you can find antique shops, New Orleans’s signature Jazz Clubs, famous restaurants, beautiful historic buildings, voodoo shops, museums, the wharf and more. Just blocks from the exciting 24 hour Bourbon Street, you can find spectacular antiques and art galleries on Royal Street.

AAA has awarded it the coveted Three Diamond title and the Bienville is a member of the Historic Hotels of America. This boutique hotel consistently works hard to go beyond the standards that are demanded of that title.

They have a restaurant, the Louisiana Heritage Café that also serves as a school of cooking. In its casual setting it offers seafood, pasta, soup and salads in the New Orleans tradition. Some of Chef Faroldi’s dishes include Seafood Beignets with Remoulade Sauce, Blackened Catfish topped with Crawfish Etouffée and the famous “Rajun Cajun” Omelets. It is located on the first floor of the hotel and serves three meals a day.

The culinary lessons at the Louisiana Heritage Café can be for individuals or groups. Anyone can attend these lessons. The delicious fare is typically Cajun and Creole and while the chef is preparing the dishes he offers historic stories that will compliment his presentation.

For the business person Bienville House Hotel has a charming space for small meetings or parties for up to 100 guests. In the board room, which will hold 12, you can see the historic roots of this New Orleans Hotel in the exposed brick from the 1800′s. Within this board room you will find all of the amenities, like a wireless internet, and a wide range of AV equipment. The Vieux Carre room has 1,318 square feet available for larger meetings. All catering needs will be met by the staff at the Louisiana Heritage Café.

After your business meetings, the location of the Bienville House will delight your fellow attendees. With attractions like Bourbon Street, Jax Brewery, Jackson Square, the Mississippi Riverfront, Harrah’s Casino and the Canal Street and St Charles Avenue Streetcar lines your peers will have plenty of things to occupy them. With it’s proximity to New Orleans Central Business district the Bienville House Hotel’s prestigious address it’s a natural for any business person.

They have what they call The Corporate Executive Option to give all business travelers a satisfying experience. Then, after a successful day, the business traveler is mere steps from the city’s greatest restaurants, jazz establishments and shops. This plan offers the best rates with superior accommodations and many amenities. In your room you will find plenty of space to work with large desks, phones with data ports and cable TV. Included in this option is express check-in and check-out. You can count on the staff’s support to help arrange a small meeting or a corporate reception. You couldn’t do better than these elegant surroundings with state of the art equipment.

When you are thinking of taking a trip to Las Vegas, consider the Excalibur Hotel and Casino. It has everything you would expect of any Las Vegas Hotel. There is world class dining, plenty of entertainment and lots of casino action.

In the rooms you will find warm comforting tones and hardwood furniture. They have all the amenities, high speed internet access, hair dryers, irons and cable TV. There is an amusing room called the Turret with a castle theme. In the other standard rooms they offer either a king size bed or two queen sized beds. The luxurious spa rooms have a spa built for two, which is not only relaxing but romantic to boot. In a parlor suite you will find a full living room, dining area, a guest bathroom, a refrigerator and a marble spa and shower.

In this Las Vegas Hotel you will find everything you want in a fun and friendly atmosphere. At this castle you can take pleasure in slots or table games, a poker room, race and sports book service and round the clock Keno. There are many slots and electronic games ranging from one cent to one hundred dollars. The table games are Blackjack, Craps, Roulette, Poker, Baccarat and Mini-Baccarat. In the Race and Sports room you can bet on horse races, dog races, or your favorite sports team.

For Entertainment you can choose The Tournament Of Kings dinner show with jousting and dancing maidens. Or how about Thunder from Down Under with the hottest hunks from Australia. If you need a good laugh catch Louie Andersons show Larger Than Life.

In this Castle naturally the buffet is King. There enough entrees to please everyone. They are open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and don’t miss the Champagne Sunday Brunch. The Steakhouse At Camelot has won awards from Zagat for it’s food and service. They offer the most tender beef and fresh seafood that is flown in everyday. You can arrange to have a private dining room.

At Sir Galahads, order their prime aged beef that has been seasoned in rock salt and ground pepper. It is then slow roasted and sliced right at your table. Here too, there are private rooms available.

If you feel like Italian food, go to Regale Italian Eatery. They have all the usual food you would find in an Italian Restaurant. You will find, pizza, pasta and lasagna along with their specialties like shrimp scampi, chicken and veal. Try their famous Family Style Dinner while you are there.

Then there is the Sherwood Forest Grille and the Village Food Court both with more affordable prices. Perfect for when you just want a quick bite.

The Royal Treatment Spa is the place to be if you want to feel like a King or Queen. It has 13,000 square feet and overlooks the pool area. It is a world class spa and will pamper you with its wide variety of treatments. You can work out in the fitness center or get pampered in one of its eleven treatment rooms.

If you want a Fairy tale wedding, the Excalibur is the place to go. Their Canterbury Wedding Chapel will celebrate your wedding in a beautiful, traditional setting that you would expect at a castle. They have wedding coordinators that will help you with your photos, rehearsal dinner, flowers and the reception. It will create fond memories for you to cherish for a lifetime.

Excalibur’s full-service catering staff can help you plan any kind of special event from small meetings to grand galas.

For other activities other than gambling or eating, there are 17 shops on the Castle Walk, a gaming arcade, a gorgeous pool and plenty world class golf courses to choose from.

The Excalibur Hotel and Casino is a Las Vegas Hotel that will cater to all of your needs.

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Well, some of you Bed & Breakfast innkeepers missed a golden opportunity. I went to websites of inns best known for their food, but no entrees were even mentioned. How can it be that an award-winning inn for their breakfast doesn’t describe any breakfast? So I went to websites that proudly described their dishes. Here are a few of them.

The Buttonwood Inn is in a small New Hampshire town called North Conway, but nothing about their breakfast is small. They may begin with some Pumpkin-Walnut bread or Apricot-Orange scones, Maple Cinnamon rolls, Blueberry-Walnut Crumb Coffee Cake, or warm Fruit Crisp with granola, accompanied by cool, fresh fruit topped with raspberry sauce . That would be enough breakfast for me, but the chef is just getting warmed up. Next comes a savory dish like Mushroom-Sausage and Cheddar Cheese Strata, Scrambled Eggs with Goat Cheese and Chives and a side of roasted Red Bliss Rosemary potatoes. Then comes the sweet entrée: Baked French Toast Casserole with Pecan and Wild Maine Blueberry topping. Or Light Yeasted Belgian waffles under fresh blueberry sauce. Hail to Buttonwood.

Mission Oak Inn of Henry, Illinois offers some wonderful breakfast dishes like French Banana Crepes and fabulous Blueberry Pancakes, but it was their dinners that snapped me to attention. How about a Pizza of roasted chicken, onion, and cheese atop a dreamy creamy sun-dried tomato sauce? Or tender meat medallions served in a cream, brandy, maple and mustard reduction? Or grilled salmon on fresh greens with original sauce and topped by bacon, green onions, parmesan cheese, and walnuts? Or pork tenderloin marinated in apple cider, grilled, then smothered with homemade apple/peach chutney?

Then I happened to catch Jane of the Hawk Valley Retreat on the phone. When I asked about her most popular dishes, her voice became secretive and sultry and she led me lovingly down the list: German Baked Apple Pancakes, Baked Peach French Toast, pancakes with a brown sugar/strawberry compote, Green Onion and Spinach Cheese Quiche with hash brown crust, and Eggs Benedict with her own secret Hollandaise sauce recipe. The names of her entrees didn’t bowl me over. But as she described every detail, every ingredient and spice, I knew cooking isn’t just fun for her, it is a luscious adventure. There’s a difference. Jane is a master of simple baking.

Like many of these top inns, the chefs at the Bloomsbury Inn use only fresh local farm products. I never expected a South Carolina inn to be full of such scientifically talented people. But they’ve experimented with hundreds of dishes, and the creativity of their top picks boggles the imagination: hot apple soup, poached pears and baked peaches with toasted peanut butter rolls, creamed eggs in a puff pastry, baked cinnamon-raisin French toast, toasted bacon-pecan bread, homemade biscuits with chocolate gravy, peppered praline bacon, and their own version of Eggs Benedict: a delicate crème sauce over croissant, wilted spinach, peppered ham, avocado, and poached egg. Exquisite.

Sue of the Harbour Ridge Inn in Osage was not about to be outdone. She emailed me with her choices, and I appreciated the personal attention. Sue serves fruitinis in martini glasses with a white chocolate mousse base on which she slices banana. Then she pours in Chambord-soaked strawberries with a dollop of whipping cream and a mint leaf for garnish. She does the

Bloomsbury Inn one better by nesting her Cinnamon-Raisin French toast atop a whipping cream custard base accompanied by sausage loaf and delicate poached pears in red wine and orange juice. Another popular French toast starts with fresh grilled pineapple slices, country ham, sliced cheese. Add sourdough bread soaked in French toast batter, grilled and served with a strawberry-jalapeno pepper jam. She also makes egg casserole to order with choices of fresh stuff like roasted red peppers, leeks, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, spinach, diced ham, cheeses and fresh basil and dill. I was impressed. Nice email.

The Judge Porter House in Natchitoches (where?), Louisiana it not to be missed. The first course at the judge’s might be peach or apple dumplings, bread pudding with warm maple sauce, Peach Crisp baked with a coconut-pecan topping, Apple Brown Betty topped with vanilla yogurt, pecans, and cinnamon, or Berry Puff Pastry stuffed with fresh berries, drizzled with raspberry sauce, and topped with whipped cream. The second course may include delicious pancakes, waffles or French toast, but I featured those things in other reviews so let me emphasize the egg dishes. One baked egg dish features eggs with savory mushrooms and crème Francais cradled in Black Forest ham crisps. Another favorite is Southwestern egg mixture baked in individual ramekins and topped with hearty salsa. Then there’s the Queen Anne Quiche, but the chef was very hush-hush about it. Guess you’ll have to visit the judge’s to check it out.

The two most attractive things Bed & Breakfasts offer are cozy, top rate lodging and the best breakfast ever. Check out these terrific inns.

When entering the world of online sports gambling, a lot of us stop and ask ourselves this question, “Am I doing something illegal?” Well in most of countries, the federal government has laws which indicate if it is legal or not to participate in online sports gambling. These laws are dependent entirely upon the country but most of the countries in the European Union have a clear stance that online gambling is allowed. The United States of American has laws that are more muddled and it can be hard to find a clear answer as to whether gambling is legal. Before actually getting into the laws themselves, let’s first look at who regulates sports betting.

In the US the regulating of online gambling was controlled completely by each state, however at present this is not so anymore. With the introduction of online gambling there has been a misperception of authority. Therefore the question is, “who is in charge of making and enforcing the laws of cyberspace?” Now keep in mind that there was sports’ gambling long before it was made available via the internet so the plan was to simply apply these same laws when online sports gambling was introduced, however this was left open to extensive clarification.

Even though the US government has passed several laws prohibiting online sports gambling, the operators of these online casinos have found a way to work around these laws. What they do is, they go offshore to others countries/states which allow online gambling and provide their services to the US citizens from there. I know what you are probably asking, “is this legal?” well to be honest it probably is not but there are no present laws which prohibit this activity, so it will continue to happen. There have been attempts though to pass bills which consider this type of activity illegal, however they have all failed. Even though there are federal laws on gambling in the US, the government has decided to leave all the authority to the individual states.

So in some states online sports gambling would be legal whereas in others it would be illegal. Also, if it is illegal and you are caught conducting such transactions you will be prosecuted according to what state you break the law in. Some states not only ban online gambling they also ban websites from advertising for online casinos. There are only three states in the US which allow citizens to bet beyond state borders and they are as follows, Nevada, Louisiana and California. Most states view gambling defiance as a petty crime and the majority of the time the operators are usually the main focus as opposed to the gamblers themselves. In order to keep within the US laws majority of the internet sports books and their servers are located offshore where they are untouchable. In closing, the US government is definitely aiming to pass a legislation which would better deal with the regulation of online gambling, but because the matter is so unclear, nothing of substance can be established, there is still hope for the future.

Kenner is a suburb of New Orleans in Louisiana. The city was founded in 1855 by Minor Kenner. It was built on the land of three plantation properties. This land was purchased by the Kenner family. The region also had swampland. A streetcar line operated between New Orleans and Kenner during 1915 – 1931. Kenner began to grow in the late 1950’s. This was due to developers who began subdividing, draining and filling the swampland in the northern half of the city. As the highway developed Kenner became a suburb of New Orleans and experienced rapid development.

Kenner is a city that is growing fast. It lies between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. It has a town atmosphere with the facilities of a big city. When you

sell your property at Kenner you are giving the buyer a good deal for the money. That is because Kenner is a great place to stay. A large number of businesses are operated at Kenner. It also has many hotels. The city has a good medical infrastructure with the Kenner Regional Medical Center. Air services are available near the city. The city has many nearby colleges and universities. It also has public high schools and, primary and middle schools. There are a few private primary and middle schools. The city also has numerous churches of various denominations.

The city has many recreational facilities such as a golf course, a country club, a city hall and a library. The city also features the Louisiana Toy Train Museum. The city has many shopping centers and parks. There are seversl AM and FM radio stations and also TV stations in the vicinity. The parks in the city offer gymnasiums, playgrounds and tennis courts. Other sports on offer are football, volleyball and basketball. The children’s programs here include arts, cooking, crafts, dance, gymnastics, karate, science, day camps and summer workshops. Leisure for the elders includes aerobics, arts, crafts, cooking, computers, fitness, dancing and tennis. The city has plenty of green space with walking and jogging trails, and picnic areas. These are guarantees that if you sell your property at Kenner the buyer will have a great time.

The government has created an environment conducive to business in the city. Almost all the licenses requirements can be availed online. There are many employment opportunities. The city has over 4000 businesses. The city is drawing in new investors and that will add to the economic development. The city also has many places for conventions including the large Pontchartrain Center. Rivertown touches the Mississippi River and is a historic district in this area. It has many museums, shops and cultural resources. Rivertown also has a theater, a heritage park, a planetarium and places to eat at. Laketown touches the Lake Pontchartrain and has a boat launch, pier, pavilions and, a jogging and biking path.When you sell your